480 Obituary — H. J. Johnston-Lavis. 



H. J. JOHNSTON-LAVIS, M.D., M.R.C.S., F.G.S., 



VlTTEL, VOSGES, FKANCE. 



As we go to press we leurn with, great regret that Dr. H. J. 

 Johnston-Lavis has beea killed in a motor accident at Bourges 

 (Department of Cher), France. He appears to have been on his 

 "way from Paris taking his invalid wife to their daughter at Biarritz. 

 Madame Lavis escaped. We hope to give an obituarj- notice in. 

 a later number of the Magazine. 



iiycisoELiLj^^isrEO'crs. 



The Type of Pliolophus vulpioeps, Owen. — In 1858 Richard 

 Owen described the head and other portions of a skeleton of a small 

 mammal from the London Clay of Harwich under the name of 

 Pliolophus vulpioeps. He had made a section through the lower jaw, 

 and that section was, so far as we knew, the only fragment of the 

 original skull which survived. It is in the British Museum. The 

 specimen belonged to the liev. B. Bull, vicar of Harwich, and was 

 supposed to have perished. Such was a tradition with the late 

 Mr. William Davies, and Woodward and Sherborn failed to trace it 

 when writing their British Fossil Mammalia. But only two weeks 

 ago a message was received from the widow of Mr. Bull saying that 

 the specimen was not only preserved but that she wished to deposit 

 it in the British Museum in accordance with her late husband's 

 desire. The little skull and limb bones are as perfect as when 

 Owen left them, and still bear his labels. The section of the jaw 

 now in the Museum fits on exactly to the cut in the skull. 



The recovery of this long-lost type is of extraordinary interest, for 

 it is the earliest known horse, and its proper position is ascertained 

 from work done since its time in America and elsewhere. It is greatly 

 to be hoped that the specimen may be redescribed in the light of 

 modern knowledge, and the thanks of all palaeontologists are due to 

 Mrs. Bull, who has so carefully preserved the specimens and handed 

 them over to the British Museum, where they will be available to 

 students from all countries. The modern name of the animal is 

 Hyracotherium leporinum, Owen, for Pliolophus vulpiceps proves to be 

 identical with a species founded in 1841. 



The Fossil Track of a dting Lobster. — Dr. J. Walther has 

 remarked that very few of the Crustaceans preserved in the 

 Kimmeridgian Plattenkalk at Solnhofen exhibit traces of a death- 

 struggle or of any movement, and he infers that these and other 

 forms of life were dead before their remains were swept into the 

 basin where the Plattenkalk was accumulated. In Knoioledge for 

 September Dr. F. A. Bather describes and figures a specimen of 

 Mecochirus longimamis, one of the Glyphaeidae, accompanied by tracks 

 indicating the movements that took place during the last few minutes 

 of its life. From the nature and the distinctness of the markings it 

 is inferred that the animal had been thrown on to a mud-flat exposed 

 for a time to the direct rays of the sun. The specimen is numbered 

 I 16137 in the Geological Department of the British Museum. 



